Profiles « We Made A Deal With the Devil

Profiles

Ryan Ringer

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Ryan is a conceptual code-breaker, storyteller and social convener. (He’s also the fearless leader of this expedition.)

Positioned at the confluence of relational aesthetics, psychogeography, DIY culture and immersive make-believe – with roots in competitive improv and traditional theatre – his hybridized practice comprises installation, sculpture, digital media, writing, project management, curation and performance.

He creates situations and events, often in collaboration with others, that catalyze community, genuine collectivity, adventure, teamwork and the socio-professional development of emergent cultural workers. He currently directs Methinks Presents and Project 165 and spends much of his time playing in and between Toronto, Montreal and New York City.

For Collective Action Expedition, Ryan will perform a number of interactive projects involving food, drink, extra-sensory perception and conversation. One of his projects is version 2.0 of the Lemonade Truck, part of a series of comical foot-powered vehicles.

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Karol Orzechowski

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karol orzechowski (AKA garbageface) is a musician, writer and photographer from Toronto. In bands since the ripe age of 14, Karol cut his teeth on metal and punk rock before moving on to hip-hop and experimental electronic music. As garbageface, Karol creates sonic textures and hard beats that he uses as a base for his thoughtful, pointed, and sometimes obtuse political rhyming. On this tour, some garbageface performances will be entirely a capella, using nothing but voice, a looping pedal, and an effect box. Other performances will feature banging beats and walls of noise.

In addition to his work as a musician on this tour, Karol will be the official photographer. You can see more of his photographic work at www.decipherimages.com.

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Lisa Keophila

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Lisa graduated from OCAD’s Material Art & Design program, with a specialty in Fibre Arts/Textile Design. She practices embroidery and cutwork in a various materials, including fibre, paper, mylar and wood.

Lisa’s tour project explores Canadian culture through the creation and installation of repeat pattern designs based on national and regional iconography.

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Rick Kresta

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Rick is a multidisciplinary filmmaker, writer and producer of multifarious creative forms. He uses clowning and the (dis)integration of media to audaciously poke, prod and challenge social norms. He is a (playful) scoundrel, jester and exhibitionist who craves no audience.

His personal tour project involves scripting dense yet thinly veiled metaphors in order to make sense of a long trial of existential crisis. Through this process, he will confront the conflict between his fickle conceptual ambiguity and commitment to a clear, concise delineation of his creative practice. His overall goal is simple yet severe: to learn to sing with his own voice. Here enters the Terror Clown: a malcontent with a strong disposition toward ephemeral bouts of spontaneous “manifesterence”.

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Alex Bowron

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Alex is a Sculpture-Installation student at the Ontario College of Art & Design. It is here where she intends to combine her education in the arts with studies in urban culture and art theory. She enjoys collaboration and creative exploration and is determined to discover the exact point at which art and life converge. She also loves texture and taking photos of herself.

Alex’s tour project will explore urban and rural spaces on foot through non-regulated and intuitive wanderings. By giving in to this wanderlust, she hopes to uncover hidden secrets in small spaces and maybe even re-define what it means for an environment to be considered human-scale.

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Andrzej Tarasiuk

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Andrzej studied drawing and painting along with photography, sculpture, printmaking, digital media, wood- and metal-working at the Ontario College of Art & Design. He refers to his artistic practice as Dodalism (pronounced do-da-lism, ‘do’ as in “do or do not”, ‘da’ as in “the” and ‘lism’ as in a “soften -ism”). It is the “conscious act of doing with emphasis on substance and the sublime”. This practice stems from a year-and-a-half-long drawing-meditation on nothingness, during which he created the “Infernal Machine” drawing. Currently he works at Extempore Gallery & Studios, an artist-run space where he is developing multiple bodies of work (”The Players”, “Dodalism” “Bird vs. Worm” and “Gods, Dreams and Daemons”). He also designed and built the portable display system for the drawing portion of “We Made a Deal with the Devil”.

Throughout this expedition, he will showcase in various public places the third installment of “The Players”, a series of poster-style portraits of iconic individuals who have made important contributions to society. The third installment of this series focuses on women. Each poster combines images of its subject with symbolic elements from her life.

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OTHER DEAL MAKERS

Aga Silva

Aleks Bartosik

Alexis Williams

Allison Moore

Amanda Immurs

Amanda Nixon

Amanda White

Andrew Hutchison

Andrew Sloan

April Suen